'Dirty' Harry Callahan is the main character of the 1971 film Dirty Harry and its sequels.
An Inspector in the San Francisco Police Department, Dirty Harry is a loose cannon and wields an infamous reputation for his consistent disobedience towards authority. His signature weapon is the .44 Magnum revolver which takes down criminals often in a single-shot.
He was portrayed by Clint Eastwood.
Biography[]
In the first movie, Harry reveals to his partner's wife that his wife was killed by a drunk driver, her picture is present within Harry's apartment in the second film, Magnum Force (1973).
Harry grew up in Potrero Hill as uttered by a doctor in the first film tending his wounds, "us Potrero Hill boys gotta stick together." In the later films Harry is depicted as living in an apartment off the city limits as a recluse. Prior to the first film, Harry had two partners, Tom Fanducci and Fred Dietrich, Fanducci dead and Dietrich wounded; typically Harry teams up with Frank DiGiorgio in the first three films.
In the first film, Harry is on the hunt for Scorpio, a mentally-ill serial killer.
Throughout the first half of the film, Harry is trying to catch Scorpio in the act, who has warned the police of his intent to kill either a black person or a Catholic Priest. After Scorpio disfigures a black child with a sniper rifle, Harry and his partner Chico Gonzalez stakeout outside a Catholic church. They eventually discover Scorpio and exchange fire, however Scorpio is able to escape and in the process kills a cop.
Following Scorpio's kidnapping a small girl and demand of ransom, Harry hunts him down and successfully traces him to a footabll stadium where he was allowed to live in a small room by a janitor. There, Harry tortures him to get the location of the girl, however when they arrive on the scene the girl is already dead buried underground naked.
Harry later discovers Scorpio was released from custody due to Harry's interrogation methods violating his civil rights. Harry, undeterred, stalks Scorpio to prevent any future killing from him; however Scorpio pays a thug to brutally beat him up in order to frame Harry. This, however, is only to throw off the police from his plan of hijacking a school bus full of children, but unknown to him Harry is fully aware of his plot.
As Scorpio drives the school bus full of child hostages, Harry intercepts it causing Scorpio to crash it allowing the children to flee. Harry proceeded to chase Scorpio in a mining facility, there Scorpio managed to find another child and take him hostage, but Harry was able to quickly prevent this and incapacitated Scorpio before any harm to the kid could be done. Harry proceeded to trick Scorpio into drawing his weapon at Harry, resulting in Harry blasting into Scorpio, killing him.